6

Monday 11:23 am

Unlike the morning before the three slept peacefully. No dreams of mazes, kidnappings, or stabbings took place that night.

Most of the day had passed as normal as you would expect. They sat waiting for whatever happened next with a gut filled with nothing but anxiety and a touch of fear.

Though everyone felt the same way, no one showed any sign that they were being affected.

By now they had discussed how the unexplained rage must have been the temps and that they needed to shove down everything they felt and put on a happy face.

Now they sat in silence, either playing on their phone or half watching a TV show. Lily had been clicking a pen for the past few minutes and Maddox was about three whole seconds away from marching over to her and snatching the pen right out of her hand and throwing it across the room.

"Lily," Maddox finally said in a feigned sweet voice. "If you don't stop I'm going to shove the pen in your neck." Lily huffed in response but dropped the pen anyway.

"Well, what am I supposed to do? Sitting around waiting like this is boring as hell."

"You could-," Sage began but was cut off by the sound of Lily's phone ringing.

All three friends tensed at the sound of the phone yet Lily's hand inched over to her phone. Her hand shook slightly as she answered the call and put it on speaker.

She doubted the others could see it, but in the darkest corner of the room, the black mass had appeared again. It stared at her deeply as the all too familiar humming began.

Maddox had clenched his teeth when the humming began as well as clutch his head as if the loud humming was causing him physical pain.

While Lily had to admit the humming was loud she doubted the volume amounted to how loud he listened to his music.

"8-2-55-33-777-, Sage Martin. 555-666-7777-8, Maddox Lane. 6-88-777-3-33-777, Lily Card. Eyes blinded, mouth running, ears closed. Sage Martin, Maddox Lane, Lily Card."

The voice stopped talking for a second making the humming get louder. Maddox gave a slight gasp while putting his head between his knees. Sage looked around wildly at something that didn't appear to be there.

"Murder midnight," the voice began again. "Taken night, lost noon. Lily Card, Sage Martin, Maddox Lane, you were warned about the game yet you still came and played; now you'll play it our way. Your fate is sealed our fate is sealed and your time is up. Murder midnight, taken night, lost noon. Lily Card, Sage Martin, Maddox Lane." And just like always, as soon as the sentence ended the line went dead.

As if it were nothing but magic when the call ended everything disappeared. Maddox let go of his head with a sigh of relief; Sage stopping following an imaginary flying thing, and the black mass in the corner stepped back into the wall as if it hadn't been there this whole time.

"I guess we were right about the code," Lily said, her hand still shaking as she put her phone face down on the bed.

"Can you not be serious for one god damn second?" Sage asked bitterly as she stood up and walked closer to her friend.

"I was just pointing out that you were right! How is that not being serious?" Sage only rolled her eyes before changing the subject altogether.

"I can't believe you actually got us into this mess," she sneered. "Now one of us is going to die because of you."

"It's not like either of you tried to stop me!"

"So now it's our fault?" Maddox asked a bit outraged.

"It's all of our faults! If we would have just left everything well enough alone this wouldn't have happened!"

"You're the one who started all of this!"

"No, Maddox is the one who started this back in high school! All I did was suggest a number for once!"

"And you wonder why we didn't let you suggest one before! The one time we let you were all getting murder, taken, or lost!"

"That was a stupid coincidence and you know it!"

"You know what?" Sage asked as she begins to pick up her things and shove them into her bag. "I'm out. You two can stay together all you want but I'm leaving."

Sage was able to get all the way to the front door before Maddox or Lily could catch up to her but when they did Maddox was able to catch her by the arm before she walked out of the door.

"We can't leave until midnight." Maddox reminded her with a frown.

"No, you can't leave until midnight. I can do whatever I want." She said as she attempted to shrug his handoff.

"We can't leave or one of us is going to die- and not just die, one of is going to get murdered."

"And if that's the case I don't want to spend my last few hours stuck in house."

"They won't be your last few hours if you would just stay here," Lily tried to point out to which Sage only glared at her.

"How do we even know they were even telling the truth? We don't know anything about this 'game'. It could all be a prank or some demon from hell who is lying how we win."

"It's not just some prank. They knew our names and it's actually affecting us. Not just scaring us by giving us a freaky call either."

"I don't know what you're talking about." Sage denied though her stiffening poster said otherwise.

"Oh, so now we're going to pretend you didn't just randomly stare off into space while following something there wasn't there?" Lily asked rudely with a pointed glare of her own.

Sage said nothing as she rolled her eyes and shoved Maddox's arm off her before leaving the house with nothing but the loud slam of the door.

"I'll go after her," Maddox said as he moved closer to the door.

"You can't. We have to stay together."

"It won't work if Sage isn't here with us and you know that."

"Then I'll come with you."

"You know she won't come back if you're with us. She's too mad right now and it's not even your fault. Just let me calm her down and we'll be right back." Lily didn't have time to protest before her friend had walked out the door without another word.

Deep down she knew Maddox was right; there was no way Sage was going to come back if she was there while Maddox tried to convince her. But, at the same time, she didn't want to be alone.

And now that she was completely alone the dark mass seemed to loom over her, creating a blanket of darkness that followed her everywhere she went.

One question filled her head now that no one was here to keep her from spiraling. Who was going to be the one to die?

Her heart clenched every time her mind pushed the question was pushed to the front of her mind.

She didn't want to die.